Thank you all for the great reviews once again! And to that certain some one that didn't think I would like their review, who the hell cares what I think? Write what you want, I'd love to hear it either way! ^_~ By the way, I actually did like that review! This chapter is dedicated to the hime I ran into at the airport... Thanks for the cheese fries and I so let you win!
[::Rekindling Stars::]
by Lady in Red
(Jomaku/Unveil)
Maker walked in to find Fighter sitting in a chair beside the window gazing out at the night stars. She was often found this way, and this usually meant to leave her alone, but Maker saw that there was a new problem plaguing her and it was a little deeper than the usual gripe one would pick up during a day. From the way she had seen her and Lover come in from their training today she assumed that the two were connected in some way, Lover and her problem.
"Care to tell me about it?" Maker asked as she leaned against the windowsill and took in the sight that had captivated Fighter. She knew just what she was looking at and every time she saw her doing it she felt a little more sorry for her.
"She called me Seiya." Fighter answered giving Maker a bit of a start since she hadn't exactly been expecting her to say anything.
"Nani? Who called you Seiya?" Maker turned her head to look down at the black haired woman.
"Lover." It almost pained her to say her name.
Maker let a light laugh out. "Well that's your name isn't it?"
"I never told her my name, did you?" She turned her sights up to meet with Maker's for the first time during this conversation.
Maker shook her head and she had her answer. "But seeing how close her and Kakyuu have been, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she told her. For all I know, she probably knows my name too."
This answer didn't seem sufficient enough for Fighter as she continued to look out to the distant star that the Earth revolved around. "No, she said it as though she knew me by that name, when I saw them, she sounded almost..."
"When you saw who? You're not making sense here. I think you've been spending too much time with Healer, you're taking on some of her worse characteristics."
Fighter actually laughed a bit at the statement and Maker knew that it wasn't the end of the world after all. "I was going to try." She sighed as she thought back upon the mistake she made earlier. "I was going to try and love her. I finally saw my mistake but it was too late. When I went to her room to apologize to her I found her on top of Kakyuu... What a fool I was to believe anything she told me."
The taller senshi wasn't shocked at all by what her friend had just told her and kept her composure. "You knew from the beginning what Kakyuu's intentions for her were. It's not anyone else's fault besides your own that you let yourself believe there was room for one more in that situation." Maker didn't dare look at Fighter's eyes, she knew this wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it had to be said either way. "Don't think I didn't hear about your little escapade this morning."
"Healer does have a big mouth."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Nani?"
Maker turned and began to head out of the room. "So what are you going to do about Kakyuu and Lover?"
"What can I do?" Fighter had no idea what Maker was getting at and swiveled in her chair as not to let her escape her view.
Maker stopped before she got to the door. "Are you just going to let it alone? Or are you actually going to fight at a shot at happiness this time?" And with that she left the room closing the door behind her and leaving Fighter with this thought.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Usagi sat on her bed having not moved a muscle since Kakyuu had left her alone. She felt used almost and worse off she felt that she had betrayed Seiya in some way. She had come back, after all of the things she had said to her today, as much as she tried to push her away today she came back. How did she reward her for her actions? She stabbed her in the heart by making love to another.
Usagi continued to cry and her arm brushed against something wet. The soiled sheets from her actions were still surrounding her. She had to get out of here, she had to clear this from her head if only for a moment. With a single phrase Lover replaced Usagi, stood up and ran from her room. She had no idea where she was going but at the moment that didn't seem too important to her.
How could she ever expect Fighter to forgive her after what she had done? If she had held any chance of comparing to the love Fighter had lost she had just thrown that out the window. She came up on the sitting room and saw Kakyuu sipping on a glass of red wine while listening to some music that resembled the serenade of a violin. She wasn't ready to deal with her yet. Before she would have ran to Kakyuu for advice, but now after what had just happened she thought it better not to.
Her mind was going a mile a minute along with the pounding of her heart. Her feet kept her wandering around the halls of the palace until she found herself right back where she started. She spotted Maker coming out of Fighter's room and figured it best not to consult her. True she knew what Fighter was thinking having just talked with her, but that reason was the same reason why she shouldn't talk to her. She didn't need to be yelled at right now, her mind was punishing her enough.
There was only one last person to turn to and that was Healer. Lover remembered how on Earth she never would have gone to Healer for anything, let alone comfort and advice, but there was always two sides to a person. Since she had come to Kinmoku, Lover had witnessed the somewhat softer side of Healer. She waited until Maker was out of sight before she rounded the corner coming into the senshi hall. It was so quiet, she had never really realized just how disturbing the silence was when she was alone before.
There was a trace of light creeping out from beneath Healer's door, so she knew she was in there. She knocked lightly then looked around to see if anyone else had come up around her. She was alone, still surrounded by dark and silence. "Healer?" She knocked again and called to the closed door.
There was some muffled noise that sounded like movement coming from the other side of the door. Lover knocked again and the noise stopped, but when Healer still did not answer the door she called again, this time a little louder. "Hold still." Came a muted response in a masculine tone. That couldn't be good. Lover thought to herself and knocked again. All movement and noise from the room ceased and there was only silence once again.
A vase shattering on the floor broke the silence and Lover burst into the room. Her heroics were short lived however when she felt a hand grab her from behind. Healer was sitting on the bed crying wearing a torn spring dress and messed up hair. Lover had no idea who had hold of her but that didn't stop her from clawing and kicking her way free. The man shut the door and threw Lover against the wall opposite the bed. "You stay there. Don't you think you've caused enough trouble already?" He asked staring down at Lover.
"Zankou?" Lover asked holding her shoulder. He had thrown her quite hard and she felt as though she had just broken every bone in her body. Zankou made his way back over to Healer. "Leave her alone!" Lover tried to call out.
Zankou only laughed at her response as he put an arm around Healer. "Stop what? She asked me to do this. Didn't you sweet heart?" He smoothed her hair to the side that was stuck to her cheek by her tears.
"Healer?" Lover asked trying to get up. "Why aren't you fighting back? You don't have to take this?" She had always seemed so tough as though she had an impermeable exterior, Lover never thought the girl would break down like this.
"I told you, she asked for it." Zankou stood and kicked Lover in the stomach to ensure the fact that she wasn't getting up.
"I don't want to." Healer said meekly from the bed. She was trembling and scared, this was not at all the way she thought these events would turn out. Zankou had been so nice and sweet to her the past couple of days. It was true that she had lead him on a bit, but no one asks to be raped.
"Nani?" He mocked her. "I didn't quite hear you my dear." He said pressing his lips against hers and holding the back of her hair to make sure she didn't wiggle free.
"Let me clarify it for you jack ass!" Lover was just about to her feet. "She said no!"
Zankou shot Lover the iciest look she had ever seen. He viciously ripped himself from Healer and bolted across the room to start assaulting Lover. "What the hell do you know? You're the reason that I have to resort to this!" He kicked her hard in the stomach once again and then picked her up by her collar. "Before you came along I was the only one Kakyuu would come to." He slammed his knee into her stomach causing her to buckle over further.
Lover didn't care what kind of pain he was inflicting upon her, in a twisted way she saw this as her punishment for what she had done to Fighter. "Well I guess you just didn't have what it took, now did you?" She smiled with blood coming from the corner of her mouth.
"No!" Healer came up and jumped on Zankou's back causing him to stagger backwards and drop Lover.
"Shut up bitch!" He backhanded Healer and sent her flying across the room. He then turned his attention back to Lover gasping on the floor. "Listen here little princess." He grabbed her again and slapped her in the face. "Why didn't you just stay on your own damn planet? What, the ever powerful Sailor Moon got bored? You couldn't find a good piece of ass among your own senshi? You had to come here and steal mine?!"
Zankou's grip around her neck tightened and tears began to fall down her cheeks. "What, no wise remarks? You're not so tough now are you?"
STAR SENSITIVE INFERNO!!
The attack blasted Zankou in the back burning his flesh away and in turn he dropped Lover to her knees.
STAR SENSITIVE INFERNO!!
Healer attacked him again though he wasn't moving causing his flesh to only blacken and skidding him across the room. She stood over him and raised her arm again to attack. "No... Healer, stop it!" Lover said grabbing onto the other girl's leg.
Healer looked down at her with mixed emotions. This girl had just saved her, but yet if what Zankou had said was true... "He's going to die from those wounds anyway." Healer scuffed and sat down next to Lover.
"I'm sorry." Lover said wrapping an arm around Healer's shoulders. She didn't shrug it off as she had expected her to, but instead leaned into the embrace.
"It was my fault..." Healer began to sob a bit. "I let him think that I wanted to, I thought I wanted to... but when it came down to it..."
"When it came down to it, when you said no he should have listened." Lover said pissed that Healer could even be blaming herself in anyway for this situation.
Healer sobbed into Lover's chest as she just held her tight. "I'm going to jail... they're going to kill me."
"From what I saw it was self defense." Lover said trying to comfort the upset girl in her arms. It was true that she would have to stand trial for his death. That is, if he died. Lover pushed Healer off of her and struggled to stand up. "I won't let them hurt you." She smiled down at her and pulled a golden object form her fuku.
MOON ETERNAL MAKE-UP!!
Healer watched in amazement as Lover transformed into the familiar figure of Eternal Sailor Moon. Zankou was telling the truth. Her tier appeared in her hand and she looked back at Healer with a sadness in her eyes before she raised it high above her head.
STARLIGHT HONEYMOON CRYSTAL POWER KISS!!
The room was engulfed in an oray of colors and lights and it shook the very ground they stood on. Such power to be dormant in such a petite woman. When the power faded and Sailor Moon brought her hands to her sides Zankou lay in front of them healed from any damage that they had caused.
"Healer!" There was a pounding at the door. Sailor Moon quickly transformed into Lover again just before Fighter and Maker burst through the door. "Healer? What was that just now?"
Healer looked at Zankou and then at Lover. "I don't know what you're talking about?" She said dumbly and raised her shoulders in a shrug.
Fighter and Maker just sweat dropped and then looked at Lover. "You mean to tell us that you have no idea where that power just came from that shook the entire palace?" The two just sat on the floor and shook their heads.
"What happened to him?" Maker pointed to Zankou laying on the floor unconscious.
Sure Healer could have blown her cover right then and there but she didn't. "He had a little too much to drink at dinner tonight and I'm afraid he can't hold his liquor very well. I asked Lover here to help me carry him back to his room."
"Oh." Maker answered now aware that Fighter had left, no doubtedly because she couldn't stand to look at Lover. "I would have helped."
"You were with Fighter." Lover answered still trying to think of excuses.
Maker's eyes narrowed. "Speaking of Fighter, I think it would be best if you just stayed away from her for a while. She told me what happened earlier." Lover looked down in shame and didn't respond to Maker's statement. She doubted that Fighter would let her near her even if she tried.
Healer shot a puzzled look in Lover's direction and noted to ask her about it later. "Well, what are you two doing? Let's get this drunk ass off of my floor!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Usagi?" Healer questioned Lover from behind her after they shut Zankou's door. Lover turned around to look at her. "Why are you here?"
Lover stopped. "Some times I wonder that myself." She said with a bittersweet smile. "You can't tell anyone who I really am, especially not Fighter or Maker."
"Does Kakyuu know?"
"You know, we really shouldn't be talking about this here in the open. Let's go somewhere else." Lover said looking around to see if anyone else had already learned too much. Healer nodded in agreement. They walked out into the night air. It was dripping with moisture that would turn to dew in the morning. Luring themselves out into an opening, therefore leaving no places unwanted ears could hide in, they sat down and commenced their conversation.
"You still haven't answered my question." Healer said in suspense about the whole situation. She figured she should be mad at her for lying to her this entire time but she wasn't, some how, for some reason she felt bad for her.
"Yes, Kakyuu knows. She's the one that told me I couldn't tell you guys about my true identity in order to become a Starlight?" Lover looked up at the stars above them, back towards where she knew her true home to be.
The answer still didn't satisfy Healer's question and she asked on. "But that doesn't explain what you're doing here." She looked over at Lover just staring at the stars trying to picture her in her old form. She looked so different without those damn buns on top of her head.
Lover looked away and smiled at Healer. "I came here for Fighter."
"Nani?"
The blond sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees that she had brought up to her chest. "I came here because I was in love with Fighter. I asked Kakyuu to make me a Starlight so that I could stay here with you guys... to be with Fighter everyday."
Healer's eyes were wide and almost bulging out of her head. This information was too much. Lover loved Fighter, Usagi loved Seiya, and all this time she had been torturing herself thinking she was in a one-sided love. "You came here for...Fffighter?" She wanted to make sure she had this right. "What did the other senshi have to say about this?"
Lover placed her forehead on top of her knees. "They don't know I came."
"I'm sure they must know by now, I mean you haven't been there for a long time now." Healer's mood in no way reflected Lover's cool depressed fa�ade.
"No." Lover picked her head up. "I haven't talked to any of them in a great while. We all pretty much grew apart when we graduated even Mamoru and I."
"I'm sorry."
Lover gave her a faint smile. "It's alright, you're talking like it was your fault." Tears had welled up in her eyes and glistened in the starlight. "I screwed that up all by myself, just like I've fucked this all up too."
"What did you do?" Healer was confused, she had just seen Lover and Seiya kissing this morning, what could have changed in a day?
"I lost hope... I lost my way... I temporarily lost sight of that one thing that drives me from day to day... but worse of all I lost any chance at winning Fighter's love." This wasn't the first time she had admitted this to herself, but it was the first time she had said it aloud, for some reason it made all the difference and it hurt so much more now. The truth was finalized in her mind.
Healer looked strangely at Lover for a moment. "What could you have done that was so horrible that Fighter wouldn't still absolutely adore you?"
"I became desperate and alone when Fighter rejected me today. She pretty much told me I was nothing to her and could never replace that one girl that she loves. Having no home, no friends and no one to turn to, I ran to Kakyuu... and that's where Fighter found me... in the arms of another woman." By now the tears were flowing freely down Lover's face as she recalled the events that had gotten her to this point. Healer didn't say anything, and she just assumed it was out of disgust. Then it dawned on her, what Healer had just said. "What did you mean by she `absolutely adored me'?"
"You really are an odango-atama, you know that?" Healer mocked her with a faint smile. She wasn't disgusted with her at all, in fact she knew somewhat how she felt. "YOU... You are the one girl that Fighter loves, or rather Usagi is, but it's still you."
Lover wiped her tears away with the back of her glove. "Nani?"
"I get it now." Healer stood up with a bit of determination in her features. "I don't know when or how it happened but Kakyuu must have become infatuated with you. She knew all along of Fighter's love for you and THAT'S why she wouldn't let you tell us who you really were."
Lover's emotions were about to boil over. How could she been so na�ve to fall for such a lame excuse as the one Kakyuu gave her. Rage and fury tempted her mind as she thought of the pain and suffering she had gone through just playing along with Kakyuu's sick little game. Lover stood and began running in towards the palace.
"Wait!!" Healer called after her as she soon got up and followed her lead. "Lover wait!!" She was running fast, so fast in fact that Healer couldn't keep up, which surprised her.
Pure passion drove Lover's body at such a tremendous speed as she only had one thing on her mind. Kakyuu. How could one person be so malice and cruel? Not only was she hurting Lover but Fighter too. Lover saw Maker up ahead on the side of the hall and could still hear Healer trailing behind her.
"Maker grab her quick!" Healer called ahead to her brunette partner. "Don't let her get by!"
Maker jumped out to the middle of the hallway coming into the path of the speeding Lover. "Lover stop, just stop." She said preparing for the impact. Lover had no intentions of slowing down let alone stopping. When she finally made it to the tall senshi she dropped to the floor and slid between her legs coming up on the other side and looking back.
Healer had gained significantly on her and had now reached Maker but it didn't appear as though they were going to chase her any further and she soon found out why. Lover felt two strong arms encapsulate her from behind but with the momentum she had gained and that of her assailant they were both knocked to the ground. "Let me go!" Lover struggled to get free but the other person's hold was firm on her.
"Fighter, don't let her go!" Healer called to the raven-haired senshi clutching to the blond on the marble floor.
Lover stopped struggling once she realized just who was holding her. "Someone mind telling me just what's going on?" Maker asked from beside Healer.
Lover still had Kakyuu on her mind and needed to get to her while her fury was still raging. She had to make Fighter let go of her. "I knew you just wanted to hold me." She whispered to Fighter as she waited for her hold to let up a bit.
Her hold didn't let up at all, in fact it tightened a bit as Fighter answered back with a sensuous voice. "Maybe I did."
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